The Society of the Spectacle
Guy Debord’s extensive reinterpretation of Marx’s work is a particularly difficult text for students to read. However most issues relating to commodity fetishism, alienation and the role of the mass media in distracting the public from more serious issues can be discussed in this video clip of the Adam Freeland song, We want your soul. The video shows numerous consumer brands juxtaposed against images of oil and war. I ask students to simply tell me what’s going on in the video, what kind of message the images are trying to convey and discuss the excellent song lyrics (which includes a voice over from Bill Hicks)
I then give them extracts from the society of the spectacle and the lyrics of the song and get them to try and match them up. It is a fun and relevant way to make a dull yet interesting theory more accessible.
I’m sure that SOTS is not the only theory that this video relates to and could be adjusted accordingly where necessary. For example, the clip was made by a kid at home, not the record label. Please ensure you watch this version for this lesson http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VH_DkBI9Qsk
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